December: The Month of Top Hats

We are getting top hat requests like mad at the shop this month. It’s blowing our minds. Back in 2009, we made a bunch of top hats in December and don’t think we sold a single one! Now people can’t get enough of ’em! For Dicken’s Fair, Edwardian Ball, weddings, or just for fun, they’re flying off the shelves!

Silver top hat

This is both good and bad news. The good news is that it’s exciting that such a dramatic hat is getting popular again and that our business is growing. The bad news is we barely have any left and they are incredibly hard (and frustrating) to make.

So, we have ordered 24 blank hat bodies in black to bust out our biggest top hat run ever! Quite exciting. And don’t plan on seeing any of us out of our workshop until the end of January.

Making the hats, like I said, is very difficult. We make them very differently than how the old top hats were made. Older top hats were made with some kind of extremely hard material that was then covered in silk or seal cloth. We make them now out of one whole piece of felt that we stiffen and shape. The good part about how we make them is that we can reshape them if need be, stretch them, replace ribbons or sweat bands. The older top hats are so incredibly hard that we can’t sew through them or stretch them, which is sad because we got lots of people asking if we can repair the old ones, and we can’t.

Vintage top hat

Here’s photos of a recent custom hat we made for a customer who is wearing it at the Dicken’s Fair.

Lookin’ sharp sir.

If you are interested in a top hat, place your order now! They take a long time to make, so don’t hesitate, reach for that phone and dial 415.221.5332!